February 17, 2005
NEW YORK (CNN) -- The parents of missing
Alabama teen Natalee Holloway have filed a lawsuit against one of the teenagers
who was questioned in the case.
In documents filed with the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Joran
van der Sloot, a Dutch national, is accused of "malicious, wanton and
willful disregard of the rights, safety and well-being of the plaintiffs and
their daughter, Natalee Holloway."
Holloway's parents, Elizabeth Ann Twitty and Dave Edward Holloway, have
asked for an unspecified amount of punitive damages from van der Sloot and his
father, Paulus van der Sloot, an Aruban judge.
According to court documents, the van der Sloots were personally served with
the lawsuit in New York.
Van der Sloot, 18, was arrested in June in connection with Holloway's
disappearance. Her disappearance prompted massive searches around the tiny
island, but a body has never been found.
Holloway was last reported seen leaving a bar on the resort island with Van
der Sloot and two brothers, Deepak and Satish Kalpoe. All three were questioned
and released.
Holloway, 18, a resident of the Birmingham, Alabama, suburb of Mountain
Brook, was in Aruba with a group of classmates celebrating their high school
graduation.
The 16-page lawsuit makes its case with a mixture of fact and supposition,
using a dramatic opening paragraph:
"This is a case about a high-school graduation trip to a tropical
paradise that turned to tragedy. The trip was an opportunity for a group of
young people to celebrate the end of one phase of their lives and the beginning
of another. But for one young woman on that ill-fated trip, paradise it was
not. For that young woman, Natalee Holloway, the trip was a brutal contrast to
a life full of promise and hope."
Holloway was last reported seen in a car with van der Sloot and the Kalpoes
near an island nightspot.
In a section of the case called "Natalee's Nightmare," the lawsuit
alleges that "the next hours of Natalee's young life were marked by
torment, terror and debasement," adding that she was kept against her
will, sexually assaulted and fondled by van der Sloot and "his
accomplices" as she "drifted in and out of consciousness."
During police questioning, van der Sloot and the Kalpoes gave conflicting
testimony of what happened after Holloway was last seen in the car with them.
Other than her disappearance, no clear details of what may have happened that
night have emerged.
The lawsuit describes van der Sloot as "The Predator," alleging
his parents let the boy, then 17 years old, spend his free time drinking,
gambling and "trawling for victims."
The suit also says van der Sloot's father, Paulus, created a permissive
environment for his son that "knowingly facilitated his own son's predatory
... behavior toward Natalee Holloway."